Tag: #somotoho

We’re continuing our interior look at the transformation of the SoMoToHo. Everything is going smoothly with the sale and shortly this home will belong to someone else. We hope that they will love it as much as we have loved creating it.

Let’s start in the library:

Photo by Trey Freeze

Photo by Trey FreezePhoto by Trey Freeze

Now we move on to the dining area.

Photo by Trey Freeze

Photo by Trey FreezePhoto by Trey Freeze

Here are a few of the family room:

Debra and Effie contemplating what to do with this space.Photo by Trey FreezePhoto by Trey FreezePhoto by Trey Freeze

And now for the kitchen:

Photo by Trey FreezeEffie was skepticalPhoto by Trey FreezePhoto by Trey FreezePhoto by Trey FreezePhoto by Trey Freeze

I’ll close with another shot of the exterior, just to say goodbye with.

Photo by Trey Freeze

We’re very proud of the way this transformation turned out – I’m a lucky guy to be married to someone with Debra’s vision. We don’t know yet what the next project will be but, whatever it is, I hope you’ll come along with us – you make it much more fun!

It’s time to step inside the SoMoToHo and show some pics of the interior transformation. Again, thanks to Trey Freeze for his lovely photographs and thanks to Shawn Cowdin for his help in bringing about this metamorphosis. So – without further ado and in no particular order, here we go.

I mentioned in the last post that, by the time you read it, the SoMoToHo would be on the market. It’s now under contract. Debra and I are so grateful to have had the opportunity to transform this home into something beautiful – like a caterpillar into a butterfly (couldn’t resist the chrysalis reference). And we really appreciate that you joined us in the adventure!

So. As promised, here are some before and after pics. I’m limiting this post to the exterior. In the next post, I’ll move to the interior. It may take a couple of posts to finish with the before and afters.

It has been awhile since my last post. Debra and I decided to escape the Texas heat and head WAY south – Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Here is a shot of Debra enjoying the cold weather and admiring the Puente de la Mujer by Calatrava in Puerto Madero, BA. If you’ve been to Dublin, you’ll find this bridge to be familiar. Same architect. Here’s a shot of the one in Ireland:

See what I mean?

In any event – in addition to escaping the heat, we’ve been working furiously on the SoMoToHo getting her ready to sell. In a few days, I’ll do a “before and after” post with after photos by Trey Freeze, which are always a treat. In the meantime, I wanted to share the progress and some of the “little things” that go into getting a major project like this one ready. Continue reading “SoMoToHo – Waterworks Continued and Roaring to the Finish”

The two pics below are from a 2011 trip to Ireland. The first is just pretty – from the village of Howth outside of Dublin. The second is the beginning of the Liffey Swim, an annual event that began in 1920 and has evolved into a big-damned-deal, as you can tell by the number of folks lined up to take the chilly September plunge.

The next project at the SoMoToHo is the en suite bath for the master bedroom downstairs. It is the largest bath in the house and the one that Debra was most excited about transforming. Since it’s a significant project and since we have some other time-consuming stuff going on, we’ve once again enlisted the help of Shawn Cowdin to act as our contractor. He’s reliable and conscientious and attentive to detail and, while he isn’t shy about making design suggestions, he understands and – most importantly – doesn’t try to change Debra’s vision.

The pic below is of a sidewalk coffee stand in the Kadikoy district of Istanbul, on the Asian side.

They take their coffee very seriously there and boy, do they like it strong – the story goes that your espresso isn’t strong enough unless it can support a standing bull. Debra and I aren’t quite that fanatical but we do like our coffee. We’ve had dedicated coffee bars in the last couple of houses that we’ve redone. The new look of the one in the SoMoToHo is the subject of this post. Here is what we started with: Continue reading “SoMoToHo Coffee Bar – a New Look”